9 Answers
9

Conversion : Students love to format their Documents (margins,borders,cover pages, advanced numbering, page breaks, section breaks) to their liking, it sucks if you are in group project and everyone else is using Word. It would be sad also if the professor sent you an assignment in .doc or .docx format and you lost information on the transfer.

Animations/Transitions in Presentations Maybe I am wrong/outdated but I have not seen that in Google Docs

Goal Seek : This is a life saver in Excel. If you are not packing Matlab or Mathematica then this is your saviour with non-linear equations

Other small features depend on what field and what courses but I assure you when you reach the upper levels even formatting stuff on Office for Mac is frowned upon. Do not even try googling for X vs Y it would not work, it is stuffed with tons of bloggers who do not even know how to make reset the line numbering by breaks :S . Also most likely your school would be in the MSDN Alliance which make Office software available in labs and classrooms.

As of May 3rd, 2010 we’ve temporarily removed support for offline access in Google Docs through Gears. We know offline access is important for some of you, and we're working hard to bring a new and improved offline access option to Google Docs.

If you need offline access to certain documents after May 3rd, you can always export files to your computer from the Google Docs homepage, then upload your offline files back to Google Docs after you’re finished editing offline.

Personally, I'd rather have both options and use whatever I thought worked best. Why does it have to be either / or? Usually student Office licenses are so cheap as to be basically free...

Upvote because I feel bad that you only have 101 measly points. And you make a good point
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Joe PhilllipsJul 1 '10 at 4:28

1

Depending on your school they are free or dirt cheap. The investment is worth it, people look at you with a confused face for putting MS Office on your resume. It is implied that you know how to use it. Especially in science/engineering.
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phwd♦Jul 1 '10 at 4:58

You go to a bar/club/frosh/birthday $20-$40. Late night studying with pizza $20-$40. As one purchase it looks like a lot. But span these two above across a year not so much. Thats how we are you tell us $100 we say 'woah thats a lot' but yet we spend the same $100 in a month or so on other smaller/(sometimes useless) items.
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phwd♦Jul 3 '10 at 16:24

There is some gain to be had from sticking to one tool exclusively, because you get better with that one tool.
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Michael KohneMay 15 '11 at 12:51

In my eyes, this really depends if you are taking any specialized classes. If you intend to just use normal word processing, spread sheets, etc, Google Docs should suffice. If, however, you intend on taking, for example, accounting classes, the professor may demonstrate specific procedures within Excel. You may be able to replicate what he/she is doing with some thought, but it probably would not be worth the effort and all the googling, especially at the cost of the ability to follow along in class.

Don't forget about http://office.live.com - free, "light" versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Plus, if you spring for the Student edition of MSO (which I would still recommend for those "offline" moments) you can migrate between the two with more ease than I've found using Google Docs. Native support for document formats goes a long way...

I think @Oren has covered the functional aspects of it pretty well, but you'd be missing out on the whole install/update/upgrade/relearn experience, which you really should go through at least one or twice so that you understand why people are willing to put up with some of the shortcomings of google apps.

I'm still not a fan of the ribbon. However, even that major change was not a factor in my seeking alternatives. I like Open Office because it is Open Source, and I like google docs because of the collaborative editing and run from the browser aspects.
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Justin DearingMay 15 '11 at 11:53